In radio paging systems, a paging subscriber typically obtains service from a service provider in a particular geographic region. For example, a person living in the city of Chicago in the United States typically obtains paging service from a service provider located in Chicago. The service provider typically provides the subscriber with a pager and sets up a subscriber profile in the service provider's computer system which controls the paging network. The subscriber profile is typically a computer record which contains items of information such as a pager identification number, one or more paging addresses associated with the particular pager, types of services and messages subscribed to by the subscriber, for example, alpha-numeric, tone only, voice, data, etc. When someone wishes to page the subscriber the service provider's system utilizes the subscriber profile information to properly format the message to be sent, and to page the subscriber with that message.
Frequently, service providers servicing different geographic areas arrange between one another to permit subscribers of the other provider to roam in their geographic area and facilitate the sending of pages to the roaming subscriber. For example, a service provider in Tokyo, Japan may cooperate with the service provider in Chicago in the United States so that a customer of the Chicago service provider can receive pages in Tokyo.
This roaming gives rise to a particular challenge. Specifically, a person residing in Tokyo may wish to page the subscriber who is roaming in Tokyo. The person wishing to place the page contacts the "local terminal" in Tokyo and provides the message he wishes to send the subscriber. However, the local terminal does not have the subscriber profile information required to properly format and contact the roaming subscriber. Rather, as discussed above, the subscriber profile information resides at the "home terminal" in Chicago. In the past, the message input by the person placing the page, for example that person's phone number, was handed off by the local terminal to the home terminal . The home terminal would format the message and transmit it to the subscriber according to the subscriber profile stored at the home terminal. Consequently, no matter where the person sending the page resided and no matter where the subscriber was located, the home terminal always handled the message including the information to be sent (e.g. the phone number of the person sending the page).
However, a recent advancement in paging systems as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,666,107 by Lockhart et al. filed Sep. 20, 1995 facilitates the "downloading" of the subscriber profile from the home terminal to the local terminal. Consequently, the local terminal needs to contact the home terminal only for the first page requested by someone in the local area. For subsequent pages, the local terminal has temporarily stored the roaming subscribers profile so that the local terminal can send the page itself.
The advancement in paging systems described gives rise to a particular new challenge. Specifically, a message being sent to the subscriber may "originate" from more than one terminal, i.e., either the subscriber's home terminal or a variety of other local terminals. This contrasts with systems in the past where the message was always ultimately handled by the home terminal. The challenge of the new paging system is that if the subscriber's pager detects that a message it should have received was flawed, for example the received signal was weak and therefore message information was lost, then the subscriber does not know which service provider's terminal he might contact to obtain the message.
Consequently, what is needed is a method and apparatus for conveying message origination information to the subscriber.